Maya’s assets: Hint of a conspiracy in CBI’s goof up

Let’s get it straight. CBI officials are not fools. It takes a lot of intelligence to be part of the elite probe agency. In the course of their work they are expected to go through thousands of complex documents, which would be normally incomprehensible to ordinary people. To assume they misunderstood a rather simple Supreme Court order beggars belief. The Apex court on Friday quashed a CBI probe against BSP chief Mayawati in the disproportionate assets case maintaining that it never directed the agency to lodge an FIR exclusively against her. The CBI’s action had followed a 2002 court order seeking initiation of probe against state officials in the Taj Corridor case. It did not ask for any specific action against the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. [caption id=“attachment_370343” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Agencies[/caption] “The CBI proceeded against Mayawati without properly understanding our order. Anything beyond Taj Corridor scam was not subject matter of this court. There is no finding and no material report pertaining to the DA case against Mayawati,” the court said. Interesting indeed. Where was the scope for the agency misunderstand the order? Situations like this call for conspiracy theories. Was Mayawati being framed by political rivals? Her counsel Satish Mishra would believe so. He had said earlier that the CBI filed the FIR under pressure from the then BJP government. Given the culture where the agency is routinely used against political rivals and the animosity between the BJP and the BSP, this need not be a wild theory. The BJP has stoutly refuted the allegation though. But it could be the Congress’ handiwork as well. It needed to keep Mayawati under control since it needed her support in Parliament. The party is known to be clever in using the CBI to its advantage. During the crucial voting in the Indo-Nuclear civil nuclear deal in 2008, the party used the DA cases against both the leaders to garner support. “Allegations by the BSP are not true. In 2003, the NDA government was there only for a few months. Since then the UPA is in power for eight years,’’ said senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. The hint in his statement is clear. The SP would, of course, have loved it had the court’s order gone against Mayawati. “The CBI was a bit lax in its investigation and handling of the case. Had it taken more efforts, the Supreme Court wouldn’t have given such a verdict,’’ the party said. Not too harsh a comment one would say, particularly since its own chief Mulayam Singh also faces a disproportionate assets case. It did not have any control over the CBI and linking it to the disproportionate case would be far fetched. But there is reason to believe there are political motives behind the goof. It could not have been anything but deliberate. Mayawati’s assets doubled from Rs 52 crore to Rs 111 crore between 2007 and 2012, nearly at one crore a month. Her affidavit for the Rajya Sabha a couple of months ago showed she owned immovable assets worth Rs 96.38 crore and movable assets over Rs 15.26 crore. She had jewellery worth around Rs 96.53 lakh. No small achievement this from a not so well off post office employee’s daughter. She was once called the ‘miracle of democracy’ by former chief minister Narasimha Rao. Her wealth certainly is a bigger miracle. Of course, she won’t admit this is ill-gotten wealth. She maintains her wealth is the gift from her supporters and all of it is accounted for. But the scale of her wealth is just eye-popping. If not a criminal case, a probe should be ordered just to ascertain how a politician’s wealth can grow this big just for academic interest. Let’s not assign the job to the CBI this time.